The Westfield Promenade in Woodland Hills is one major development with limited transportation options. Photo: Wikimedia

The key to making a more crowded Valley work is to embrace mass transit — sooner and more intelligently than other parts of the region have done.

For years, lots of people who lived in the Valley drove to West Los Angeles for work or nightlife. Once there, we encountered some of the worst freeway and street traffic in Greater L.A. That side of town failed to do public transportation right, and they paid dearly.

The Daily News goes on to make the point that transit service needs to serve existing destinations as well as planned future destinations.

More people are coming to the Valley. We must accept it, and make smart choices about transportation and planning to avoid the mistakes of the Westside.

Congratulations to the Daily News. With two quick editorials, the paper has rocketed to the front of the list of sustainable transportation print publications. Maybe there’s a secondary benefit to having Dakota Smith wandering the news room.

Absolutely. We moved to the Valley because quality of life was better–in large part, due to the fact that we no longer had to deal with Westside traffic.

CarltonGlub

Yay for Dakota Smith!

Dan W.

Then the Daily News should be calling on San Fernando Valley state legislators to repeal the Robbins bill to give the Valley more transit planning options.

http://www.nohofosho.net Jrtlem

I sold my car to Keyes Woodland Hills and hiked to the Orange Line stop back to North Hollywood. I can tell you that walk was one of the loneliest walks I’ve had, despite being in the center of a commercial district. If I had to stay out there, I would’ve walked right back into the dealership and demanded my car back.

They’ve got a long way to go to make Warner Center anything approaching pedestrian/transit-friendly. I’d like to see how proposed developments like that really pan out in Woodland Hills. I guess I’m glad they’re trying anyway.

The places to focus on in the Valley to me should be places like nascent “pedestrian-villages” like downtown Burbank, North Hollywood and various points along Ventura Boulevard.

Need4travel80

Sorry but did you say the walk from Keyes WH to the Orange Line was too long? You mean the one block walk to the Warner Center Station? Am I missing something?

BC

photo caption “The Westfield Promenade in Woodland Hills is one major development with limited transportation options.”

True, but well, the Orange Line ends at the Westfield Promenade.

Mig

Doesn’t seem as though anything was said about the length of the walk, simply the quality of the environment.

Need4travel80

@33a4a29fa98c467188730f4ad7ff3668:disqus Mig
The word “hiked” seems to always refer to a long distance, at least for me.

http://www.nohofosho.net Jrtlem

Mig got it right…

http://www.nohofosho.net Jrtlem

Need4travel80, the point was the walk seemed longer than it actually was because the environment wasn’t built with pedestrians in mind. I walked from one side of a super block to another while surrounded by parking lots. There was not one person on the sidewalk in front of me, and this was at about 6:30 PM.

I mean let’s be honest, that’s all really Warner Center is: super blocks infused with parking lots, regardless of its transit connections, which were clearly an afterthought anyway.

BC

Warner Center has two large hi-rise hotels, the highest density housing in the West Valley, the highest density middle class housing in the entire Valley (many large multi-family condos and apartments), an Orange line stop and express bus hub, 4 skyscrapers, bike lanes, a 15 acre park with concert shell and free summer concerts. The main problem is that the largest retail landlord and vacant land owner is Westfield, which in 2005 couldn’t find anything more creative to do with 300 million dollars than to turn the old box style Topanga Plaza mall into a double-wide box style mall with zero outdoor space and mega parking structures – ie 40 year old design. Fortunately they now have no credibility with many in community, so they will be opposed as they try to do similar visionless development across the street. Westfield makes Caruso look like the most progressive developer in the world.

Word On The Street

“With 6 to 7 million cars registered in LA County, it's really laughable to hear the supposedly most progressive thinkers around on the topic go for reducing the number of autos by a mere 100,000 by 2020! Why not 3.5 million? Cut the damn things in half.”